Kendall L. Stewart, M.D.

Once you decide what to measure, you will naturally want to compare your performance with your colleagues and competitors. And you will want to find out how the very best companies in the world are performing on those indicators. Finding and displaying apples-to-apples comparisons can be a challenge. Leaders, fearful that they really don’t measure up, will complain that they can’t find good comparative data, and particularly benchmark performance data. That’s just an excuse. You can always find out how the best organizations are performing. The organizations that are producing exceptional results are usually eager to share them.

1. Make your expectations clear. Don’t let your colleagues off the hook. Find out how the best leaders are performing, even if you have to look outside your own industry. Don’t accept any excuses. Demand benchmark comparative data for every major performance indicator.

2. Participate in a national database. Since every leader who aspires to be successful is interested in measuring performance, an endless number of national performance databases have emerged. These will report your percentile ranking on customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and physician satisfaction. This makes it easy to know exactly where you stand. It does not make it easy to achieve and sustain exceptional performance, but you can know where you stand.

3. Include benchmark performance on every performance chart. Once the number is there, people will not be able to ignore it. And their competitive juices will kick in. The slackers will lobby hard not to publish world-class performance results because they know that you will then expect them to stop slacking and producing exceptional results instead.

How do you identify benchmark performance in your organization?

Kendall L. Stewart, M.D.

Once you focus on results by identifying performance metrics, you will need to set some goals. To your surprise, even your best people will lobby to set goals that are easy to achieve. People want to feel good about themselves as they are. Very few people roll out of bed every day looking forward to working hard. We all want to do only what we want to do and we want it to be easy, fun and quick. And the idea that one’s performance must keep improving year after year is positively annoying to people who have convinced themselves that they are already special.

1. Begin where you are. Set annual goals that are both tough and realistic. Setting the 95^th percentile as your target when you are currently functioning at the 10^th percentile is ridiculous. Such expectations are not motivating; they are merely discouraging. As you approach top quartile performance, strive for smaller improvements each year. It’s a lot harder to go from the 89^th percentile to the 91^st percentile than it is to improve from the 38^th to the 45^th.

2. Use comparative performance to set your goals. If you are producing at the 6^th percentile and your competitor is already functioning at the 51^st, you will look pretty stupid setting your goal at the 12^th percentile.

3. Decide on the level of performance you expect to sustain over time. Most leaders would agree that the organization that is consistently producing results across the company in the 90^th percentile (the top 10 percent in the country) is a better organization than one that hits the 99^th percentile in one or two areas and is merely average in the rest.

How do you assure that your goals are both demanding and realistic?

Kendall L. Stewart, M.D.

Reporting individual and organizational performance data is one thing, but finding and publishing comparative data is another thing entirely. I may think that my 95 percent accuracy is just fine until I learn that the rest of my colleagues are averaging 98 percent. It then becomes clear that my own performance is unacceptably poor, that I am the worst performer in the group. Whiny leaders often complain that accurate comparative performance data does not exist or cannot be found, but real leaders neither make nor buy that excuse. You can always find meaningful comparative data. And you must.

1. Demand comparative data. Begin by comparing your individual performance to your colleagues’ performance. Move on to comparing your team’s performance with other similar organizations. Finally, compare your organization’s performance with your competitors. That really satisfies or stings, depending on your relative performance.

2. Emphasize comparative performance. Once you begin reporting comparative performance data, its superiority over individual performance will become obvious. Before you know it, comparative data will be the only metric anyone is interested in.

3. Go public. While this is brutal, it is highly motivating. There is nothing like seeing your comparative performance on the Web for making or ruining your day.

How do you use comparative data in your department?

Kendall L. Stewart, M.D.

When you decide what to measure, publish your results for everyone to see. If your published results don’t make people uncomfortable, you are measuring the wrong things or you have not set your goals high enough. People will be fine with public performance data showing them to be perfect just as they are, but poor comparative performance data stings. Until you make your performance public, you will remain focused not on results but on continuing to do only what you feel like doing. People are strongly inclined to avoid discomfort.

1. When possible, publish some individual data. Such data give individuals a sense of control.

2. Always publish team performance data. This illustrates the most basic truth of organizational life. It is simply not possible to achieve and sustain exceptional results without teamwork.

3. Publish your results on the Internet. There are few better ways for organizations to invite their stakeholders to hold them accountable. This openness helps to create a culture of transparency, ownership and competitive motivation.

How do you publish your organizational results?